Explanation of Wide Pen Types

[jsq]

the type 4 cards were called cream colored canadian wide pens in the 70's. last fall, for the first time in about 40 years, i was discussing this with a hobby writer. since i described the type 4 set by its 1974 era name - cream colored canadian wide pens - he thought i had gone a bit senile when i mentioned that it had feller, dimaggio, hubbell, etc in the set, and me thinking the american cream colored set of 25 american stars were canadian.

they may have been issued in canada, i do not know. that is what the most advanced collectors identified the type 4 set as in the mid 70's. at that time they WERE called cream colored american r314 wide pens.

since that fall of 2015 conversation i see that now the cream colored canadians refer to the canadian player and detroit only issue from what i gather. this of course represents a different era, different knowlede. in the 70's i was not aware of the canadian issue which had obscure canadian players and some detroit players as i recall.

in 1974 i uncovered, likely, the largest grouping of type 4 r314's ever found. i had 3 complete sets of 25 and some extras. their are currently less then that # on the psa registery now if i read the registry correctly.

the type 4 set of 25 was american players with dimaggio, feller, gehringer, hartnett, appling, king carl, etc in that small set of 25.

dick reuss and many of the MAJOR collectors of the day were extremely excited about this find. dick reuss i bring up as he is mentioned in another recent posting about soaking cards from album pages in a 1970 hobby article. dick hung around with frank nagy as i recall.

the premiums were much more valued then the cards in the card sets ie a r312 premium was way more interesting to the advanced collectors then the 1933 or 1935 goudeys for instance since the advanced collectors all had complete sets (minus typically lajoie) of the card sets but advanced collectors had only a VERY few of the premiums in most cases from the 1930's sets. the premiums are exponentially rarer but also now exponentially less desired from what i have seen on ebay.

that reminds of a saying i used to say quite a bit about rare items:

the only thing rarer then this collectible is the collector who is willing to buy it!

all the best,
jsq

Originally Posted by Shoebox

You are correct that the registries are a hot mess for this set. I submitted a couple I had to SGC last month. I included the type information on the form and they included it on the flip. If you don't put it on the form they won't designate it. I put the odds at 90% that if you put the wrong type on the form it will get slabbed with the wrong type listed. One of the cards I submitted was a Type 4 Carl Hubbell. Most of the information on the set refers to it as 1936 Goudey Wide Pen but from what I have read apparently the Type 4s were issued in 37 so in the pop reports for SGC you will find data for four different ways they have slabbed the card. As a 1936 with and without the type designation and as a 1937. I wasnt sure what to put when I submitted mine so just went with the 1936 year. From what I can tell no one that matters to the TPGs care enough about this set for them to care about getting it right.